In my last few days in Shanghai, Darcy and I went to 50 Moganshan Lu, AKA M50. It’s the centre of the Shanghai art scene; an ex-industrial district converted into a warren of galleries on the banks of Suzhou Creek. There are around 100 artists in residence in the former warehouses and factories. For some … Continue reading →

Still catching up on China stuff… In December, Izabela and I went to Beijing. We both had streaming colds the whole time, which was not much fun, but it was better to climb the Great Wall than to sit around at home feeling sorry for ourselves. Besides, we had already booked the trains and it … Continue reading →

So I’m finally able to upload photos from Yellow Mountain from September… as it was so long ago I won’t go into too much detail about the trip, not least because I probably couldn’t do so with much enthusiasm as other trips are now fresher in my mind. Some things I can recall are a … Continue reading →

Sadly WordPress is now blocked in China and I can’t access my own blog most of the time so I’ll have to wait a while to catch up on posts. I’ll be back in the UK in December so if I don’t get on here again before then I’ll make up for it when I … Continue reading →

Been unable to blog for a while due to broken laptop… hopefully I’ll get it fixed soon. In the meantime, here are some pictures of my adventures at Valentine’s Valley near Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain) about which I will write more later. At Valentine’s Valley, lovers get their names engraved on brass padlocks and lock … Continue reading →

I remember my first model village. It was at Hornsea Pottery on a family day out and I was spellbound. There was a flight simulator too, but somehow that paled in comparison with all the houses, churches and local landmarks lovingly rendered in miniature form. Then there was an old issue of Vogue in the … Continue reading →

We took the bus to Shangri-La from Dali, feeling more than a little worse-for-wear after minimal sleep the night before. Darcy was horribly hungover and felt sick. When I woke her in the morning she mumbled “Let’s stay here with our friends.” If we hadn’t already booked our bus tickets I think we would have … Continue reading →

We took the bus from Kunming to Dali as it was faster than the train. The journey was pretty and uneventful, which suited me fine after the epic train journey to Kunming. We arrived in the early evening and checked into the Hump Hostel, which was nicer than the one in Kunming but we still … Continue reading →